


eastbound, petrified forest

by morphogenesis



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, My motives are complex, Past Sigma/Diana, Post-Canon, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis
Summary: Diana and Carlos are given a car and a simple mission: Transport Crash Keys’ cargo from Point A to Point B, and don't get caught. "Falling in like" wasn't part of mission parameters, but it's welcome.
Relationships: Carlos/Diana (Zero Escape)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	eastbound, petrified forest

**Author's Note:**

> I kept saying “I want to write a Carlos/Diana fic set in a mundane universe,” so here we are. Thanks to D for reading the first draft.

Akane plays with her straw wrapper, crinkling it up and using her straw as a dropper to wet it so it unfurls like a snake. She smiles at this before continuing, “We need someone we trust to handle this.”

Carlos is happy to be that guy, though he’s not thrilled about a fifteen-and-a-half-hour, one thousand-plus mile drive from Reno, Nevada to Albuquerque, New Mexico in the name of Akane and her machinations. He’d wanted to catch up when she asked him to meet her at a roadside diner he’d taken her and Junpei to once, but she needed something so he was here to listen.

That’s how he agreed to handle this trip. His captain had been suspiciously agreeable when he requested the week off, which made Carlos suspect his request and a recent hefty anonymous donation to renovate the firehouse weren’t coincidental.

Akane slides a set of car keys across the table to him, resting them beside his unfinished pancakes. “Your hotel rooms are pre-booked, and all the materials are in the car.”

“Am I committing a felony?” He never knows with her.

“Nothing that would put you in jail, I promise.” She tilts her head, looking amused at something only she knows. “And I found you a good partner!”

“Oh, Junpei’s free?”

“No, he’s busy. She’s good though, I promise. You’ve met her before.”

Diana walks up to their table then, carrying her travel bag and looking more like she’s running away from home than she’s going on a secret mission.

“Oh. Hi,” Carlos says.

Diana nods at him and gives a little wave.

*

Akane gives him a gun before they leave.

He’ll never use it. Not when he can feel the phantom kickback against his palm and smell ghostly gunpowder on his hands. The gun feels as cold as the dread he felt in his stomach when Delta was on the ground.

*

“Don’t you think they should have people who do this?” Diana asks after they’ve successfully merged onto I-80. “This sounds like something you have ‘people’ for.”

“I think we are those people,” Carlos says, already resting one elbow on the windowsill and handling the wheel with one hand. “Are you worried?”

“No, honestly I’m pretty excited.” Diana is playing with the ends of her hair when he looks over. “Had to get out of the house for a while.”

Diana has not asked about his obvious slow movement. Diana has noticed, judging by her sympathetic hand twitch when he grunted while trying to load her bag into the backseat. His shoulder isn’t what it used to be. One too many work injuries and suddenly his captain is sitting him down pushing him again and again to consider a ‘more administrative’ role ‘for your health.’

They say, ‘Take it easy,’ and Carlos hears, ‘You’re getting too old.’

Diana is not telling Carlos to take it easy. Diana is great.

*

Maria is still mad she wasn’t asked to go on this secret mission with him. At a rest stop, she chews his ear off again on the phone and Carlos sighs, “You know you have to finish school.”

He’s standing off by the curb while Diana is inside fetching coffee and snacks. She’s been quiet but polite, interested when he talks. She’s busy with work, she says, and life after Dcom has been surprisingly peaceful. She wasn’t asked to join Crash Keys so she spends a lot of time home alone whenever Phi and Sigma, who were, go out for work.

Maria is still not thrilled with this answer and asks when he’s coming home.

The drive alone is 15.5 hours, and they’re supposed to make three stops along the way, hand off one numbered suitcase at each stop, and end up in New Mexico for the last handoff. They have a week to accomplish this; Akane didn’t say what would happen if they didn’t meet that deadline, but Akane’s quiet displeasure is another man’s murderous rage.

“I love you,” he closes with just in time for Maria to hang up on him. Kids.

*

The first handoff is uneventful. They meet a bored-looking man in a button down and slacks outside of a visitor’s center of Death Valley National Park. He doesn’t seem like a secret drug trafficker or weapons dealer. Carlos is beginning to feel bored instead of theorizing what odd shenanigans they’re getting up to.

Diana waves goodbye to the man as he pulls away, and then turns to Carlos. “Was that it?”

“Our criminal career is getting off to a slow start,” Carlos agrees.

*

Diana points out they have a week, and she’s never been to Death Valley.

“How is that possible?” Carlos asks, as she’s said she grew up in California. He grew up in Reno and before his parents died he managed to see the Atlantic Ocean, New York City, a bunch of state parks, and the Pacific Northwest.

“My parents never wanted to go anywhere,” she explains. She swings in a half-circle and spreads her arms. “It’s so hot here. It’s awesome.” She pulls her sun hat down over her face and hides her eyes.

Diana is buzzing with energy the whole time, talking about how this is fascinating. She points at everything she finds interesting. She knows a lot about southwestern flora and fauna and rattles off every fact that pops into her head as they walk. They roast, they hike, they guzzle gallons of water and end up shiny and sweating in the car.

Carlos is charmed.

*

There’s a lot of empty road between the first stop and the second, Kingman, Arizona. They play games and talk easily.

Carlos says, “Okay, secret fact about me: I like musicals.”

“What! I _love_ them. What’s your favorite?”

“ _Seven Brides For Seven Brothers_. I like the barn-raising scene.”

“I like that one! How about…” Diana quizzes him and finding his musical knowledge satisfactory, pulls out her phone and puts on “Bless Your Beautiful Hide.” They’re jamming quietly for the next hour. “Does your sister like these?”

“God no, she plugs her ears if I put them on.” Thinking of Maria, he wants to call her and will do it when he’s not driving. He thinks she’d like Diana’s company; Diana dresses in feminine, cute styles that Maria has admired on other girls before, but Maria hides her own thin limbs and lack of muscle tone from years in the hospital. She doesn’t have any friends her own age besides Junpei and Akane. Maybe Diana could be a friend to her. He’ll have to keep in touch after this. 

“How have you been, anyway? Sigma, Phi?”

Diana says, “Phi’s doing great, she loves her job.” She works with Junpei, he remembers. It suits her. “Sigma… He’s fine.” Diana hesitates and then quickly adds, “Well, we broke up but we’re still friends.” Diana’s smile is wispy. He’s seen it on co-worker’s faces before when they talk about love. “We still live together because California rent is so high, but it’s working out okay.”

“I’m glad you’re still friends.”

Diana is lost in thought and doesn’t answer. He wonders how much of her mind this takes up, but it’s not his business, he reasons.

*

Their first hotel is in Las Vegas; they would drive longer, but, though he doesn’t want to admit this, his arm is in too much pain to keep driving and Diana says she’s tired. It’s a block from the Strip, which at dinner they jokingly pitch going to see but are too exhausted to do anything of the sort.

The lights are dazzling as he remembers, from a time when he was too young to enjoy Vegas and ended up left in the hotel room with Maria, keeping her amused with cartoons and pizza.

Diana’s idea of entertainment veers more towards shots; he lets her have at it and escorts her back to her room.

“Come inside,” she says, giving him pause, before saying, “I mean, I’m wired, let’s keep talking.” She smiles and it’s the bleary drunken expression he recognizes from after work drinks.

“Go to bed,” he says with a hint of humor. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Diana doesn’t mention it again in the morning.

*

Diana drives the next day, getting out a few times to use the bathroom or stretch. Above them the sky goes on for miles. Carlos plays with his phone and treats it as a jukebox for musical numbers. She smiles into the curve of her shoulder once, her mouth partially obscured by her long hair.

*

“How’s it going?” Akane asks over a phone call as they’re going down the highway.

Diana is seated beside him. He can’t talk openly as friends so he settles for a status update. Akane is pleased but does a little digging, as if disappointed he isn’t saying more. She wants something, though he doesn’t know what.

“Hi Akane,” Diana says when she figures out who he’s talking to. She’s nodding her head to the radio and in general is in better spirits than she was when they first started. After Carlos hangs up, Diana asks, “What’s it like being her friend?”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s so small but she seems, like, so big. So much larger than life.”

Yeah, he guesses that’s right. “Akane is like… Like the smartest person you know, and _they_ know they’re the smartest person you know.”

“Scary.”

“Not so much.”

“Phi’s the smartest person I know,” Diana says, tapping her hands on the steering wheel. A moment later she swears as someone cuts her off, and blows her bangs out of her face.

*

In Kingman, they get held up. The person they’re here to meet pushes the muzzle of a gun into Carlos’ stomach and threatens to shoot if they don’t open the trunk and give him everything they’re carrying. 

While time slows down, Carlos finds himself with his hands up and his voice firm, sounding rational but knowing he’s delaying the inevitable. He hopes Diana fishes the keys out of her pocket quickly, as she’s struggling with the driver’s side door. He sees her lean inside, fiddle with the glovebox, and then retrieve something dark from it.

Diana fires on the guy and grazes him, which is all the opportunity they need. Carlos shoves and sends him sprawling and then he hurries into the car. Diana peels out. They are free.

*

They are in the parking lot of a gas station. Diana is clutching his hand as tight as can be.

He yanks her into an embrace and doesn’t let go. “It’s okay,” he says. He knows exactly how she’s feeling right now and he’s here in front of her and he’s also there watching Delta die. He’s watched this a thousand times. “You’ll be okay.”

“I…” She tucks her head against his chest. “I’m not this person,” she says, voice breaking.

“I know.” He isn’t either, he needs to believe that. For a moment he is coldly angry with Akane for putting them in this position, but that’s unfair; he agreed to do it. Did she know the risks?

“We’ve got to fix this,” Akane says when he tells her, mostly to herself. “We’ve got to fix this.” Her voice hardens. “Are you alright? That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

When exactly is one supposed to be robbed, he wants to ask. “We’re alive. What do you want us to do?”

“Do? You’re going to keep driving, Carlos. You’re the only ones who can do this for me.”

He wants to do something he’s never really done with Akane: argue. But something in her voice makes him feel like he did when he looks at Diana, sitting on the curb not too far away with her head on her knees. “What are we carrying, Akane?”

“Essential information to our operation. We trade it in exchange for favors and...other things. I’m not surprised someone tried to steal all of it…” She trails off and he can picture her twirling her hand at the air like she does when she’s thinking of her next rebuttal. “I asked you because I trust you, Carlos.”

She knows exactly how to get him.

After he hangs up, he checks on Diana. “I’ll take you to a bus station, or an airport.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Diana says, the fire in her eyes apparent. “I’ll stay with you.”

*

They scuttle driving for the rest of the day, too shot to do more than find a hotel off the highway and stare into space in the sole room available. They sit until dinner. They order pizza and eat without much energy, and Diana leaves briefly before returning with a handle of vodka and a two-liter of soda. Carlos didn’t go to college but this strikes him as a particularly college craving.

Needless to say, he drinks. They start playing a drinking game with made up rules, based around identifying musical numbers from the first ten seconds of the song. Diana shows off that she can pick up and drain her cup using just her mouth.

A few shots in, he asks, “Why did you agree to do this?”

“I asked Akane to help me disappear for a while,” Diana admits. “I didn’t want to be at home anymore.”

“Really?”

“He’s perfect,” Diana says, “but I don’t want him. Why is that?”

Carlos has heard and given a lot of romantic advice in his life and he says, “Maybe he’s not perfect for you. He just looks like it.”

She shakes her head. “But it’s not like that. He knows me, he really does try to be everything for me. And I… I’m not in love with the Sigma of this history.” She looks fragile. “I don’t know why. Somewhere along the way it just changed.”

“Try not to blame yourself.”

Diana is quiet, and then says, “I keep hoping he’ll move out. Is that bad?”

“No.” He hitches one leg up over his knee, and it stings to do so. Since this seems to be a time to confess, he says, “I’m getting pushed out of my job. Is it bad that I’d rather be unemployed if I can’t be in the field?”

“It sounds like it’s who you are.”

“Is that all I should be?” He thought it was enough, once upon a time. He knew how to function when things were hard.

“Tell me when you figure it out.” Diana flops back on her bed. “There’s a pool here. Let’s go swimming.”

*

“Do you know how to swim?” she asks before wading in up to her waist and sinking into the water like an embrace.

Carlos pads after her, enjoying the weightless feeling. He follows her in an arc, with her always just out of his reach. Her hair is coming loose and sticking to her cheek, shiny in the lights.

The word for her is radiant.

When they get out his clothes are soaked and the warm air is inviting. They bathe in it for a bit before moving on to get changed.

“It feels like we’re in another world,” she says.

“Yeah.” A pause. “Isn’t it great?”

“I wish we didn’t have to go back.”

He doesn’t ask because he knows exactly how she feels.

He takes the first shower, and then while Diana is bathing he’s surfing TV and settles on cooking shows. He looks up when he hears a soft noise, not quite a word.

Diana is half in the bathroom doorway wearing a long t-shirt from a gift shop they stopped at; it proclaims that she was abducted by aliens out west. With the way she's standing it emphasizes the curve of her hip and the line of her leg. She looks at him in question, before entering the room further.

Her footsteps as she approaches the bed are near soundless.

With his nod of assent, she straddles his lap, putting her hands in his hair and tilting his head up to look at her. She smiles at him; he feels so naked. He thinks of everything he doesn’t know, and then he tells her.

She doesn’t care, she says.

He looks at her for most of it, at how certain she is and how gentle. He has sex for the first time with a woman he knows only a little but likes a lot. When she's done she climbs off of him and pushes her hair over her shoulder, smiles down on him, and rolls onto her back in the bed. She's not going anywhere. Good.

She uses the bathroom. When she comes back, she lies behind him and puts her arm over his ribs, twines her leg around his, kisses his shoulder blade. She kisses his back when his breath comes out in a shudder. 

“I know,” she says.

In the morning Diana is wearing the shirt again and sprawls out in the bed, half-awake. Carlos has already showered and dressed for the day when she sits up.

“What do you know?” he asks her.

“Oh…” She rubs her head. “That it must be awkward.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Diana scoots off the bed and stands in front of him, small but not fragile, and kisses his jaw.

At breakfast, Diana gives him her strawberries. Her conversation is amiable and light yet doesn’t hint at what last night was to her.

Carlos is confused, but the road awaits.

*

Diana is arguing with someone on the phone; he tries to tune it out but the person on the other end of the line is loud and sounds familiar. Diana barks a sharp, “Phi!” and starts to say something else before groaning. Phi hung up.

“Problem?” He can’t help but ask.

“She’s…” Diana sighs. “She’s not handling everything well. I don’t know what happened.”

He wonders if he and Diana will part ways like nothing happened. He wonders if Phi will ever find out about this. 

“Let’s just keep running,” she tries to joke. Her eyes meet his in the rearview mirror and they glimmer with hope.

*

They’re absolutely shaking at the third stop, and Diana, their new Annie Oakley, clutches the gun in her lap, hidden beneath her purse.

It goes uneventfully. Carlos, struggling to get his pulse to slow down, buys them ice cream which they eat while watching traffic go by. 

“Thanks for being with me,” he says, fumbling for a moment before touching her wrist because he’s too nervous to take her hand. She flips her hand palm-up and knits her fingers with his.

*

They have plenty of time and stop in the Petrified Forest National Park. Diana points out the Blue Mesa trail and hikes it keeping ahead of him because now it’s his knee acting up. He’s falling apart, work is right. 

They’re surrounded by sky and petrified wood and great hills of bluish clay. Diana takes a selfie and then gestures for him to lean into frame and take one with her.

Later, it will be one of his favorite memories of the trip.

*

Back on the road, they head towards Gallup which they’ll stay at for the night per the schedule, to avoid paying out of their per diem more than they have to. (He’s pretty sure Diana put the alcohol on the credit card.)

From there it will be two hours until their journey ends, and then another sixteen or so until his time with Diana ends.

They have two rooms and use one; they don’t have sex and instead sleep curled up, with the air conditioner up too high and the TV still on. When he wakes up in the middle of the night he turns everything off and then gets back into bed before the warm spot disappears.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Diana says in the dark. “I liked it.”

She’s a good liar, he wants to say, part hoping for reassurance of his masculinity and part definitely knowing he won’t get it because, well, he was there. It was awkward. 

But they both laughed when it was over.

“We can’t keep running away. Let me go home and sort things out.” He can hear a smile in her voice. “And then if you still want, I’ll call you?”

*

Albuquerque awaits.

When he hands off the last suitcase he literally dusts his hands off, Diana high-fives him, and then...

Diana looks at him and says, “We have a few more days.”

He smiles.


End file.
